Batman Arkham Knight
Vengeance Simulator
1 Player
System: PS4
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Year of Release: 2015
Beaten: October 9th, 2015
So the Arkham series, you know, not my favorite series of games really. Look I like Batman, and Arkham Asylum was like "HOLY SHIT! They finally got a superhero game right!" I mean, the first Spider-Man games based on his first couple movies were good, but really Asylum blew it out of the water in my opinion. Then City opened things up, and it got a bit tedious and the plot a bit convoluted. Then Origins, the shady cheap whore of the bunch, stumbled out looking underwhelming while promising an experience mirroring the previous games. Poor girl just couldn't match up with the pros. Which leads to Arkham Knight. It's probably the best of the bunch honestly, I mean, YOU CAN DRIVE THE FREAKING BAT MOBILE!
Immediately I've got to warn that thar' be spoilers here. I'm going to randomly weave them in, so read at your own risk (though honestly even though I enjoyed it, the plot is pretty much nonsense). Also, I need to confess that my favorite Batman villain is Scarecrow, and the fact that for the first time an Arkham game set up a villain and actually followed through with him being the big bad of the game instead of surprise-Joker AND that it was Scarecrow, I am a bit biased. Thankfully both the Arkham Knight and (last chance to avoid stupid spoilers) the Joker's appearances really do wear thin on me.
Essentially, Scarecrow is threatening to coat Gotham in fear gas, and he's gotten every other major villain to commit a big crime on the same day so as to spread Batman too thin, with the ultimate goal of destroying Batman, not killing him, destroying him. He also hired the mysterious (AKA not at all Jason Todd) Arkham Knight plus a gigantic army of tanks and military trained goons, and he swears he will finally kill Batman after all is said and done. At some point Scarecrow succeeds and covers the city in fear toxin, which looks neat, but is ultimately underwhelming, sadly. After clearing it up Batman winds up having to expose who he really is in order to save Robin and Jim Gordon. He quickly beats Scarecrow, and then goes about finishing off all the other crooks running amok. Afterwards he returns home, where a gang of press members are outside his house trying to get an interview. A few minutes after he enters his home, the mansion crumbles.
I truly enjoyed this plot overall, Scarecrow is fucking creepy throughout, and really his only weak point is that he's beaten by fucking Batman using his fear toxin on him, as usual. The other subplots are all pretty good, but the main problem in that regard is that almost half of the side quests in this game don't really star an actual super villain. And a few (Hush, Firefly, Man-Bat, Deathstroke, etc.) are either incredibly short, or the pay off is so underwhelming it's depressing.
The two biggest problems with the plot, for me, has to be the Arkham Knight, and the forced Joker segments. So, Arkham Knight. He's so fucking clearly Jason Todd it isn't even funny, before the game came out I assumed it was Jason Todd, lo and behold, Rocksteady really dropped the ball in this regard. The scenes showing Todd's fall from grace were actually really good, but his whole story makes little to no sense. He wants to kill Batman, he knows who he is, he never tells anyone who he is, and he never just GOES for it. He wants to hurt Batman, at various points he could murder a variety of Batman's comrades and just, doesn't. The final fight with him is one of the incredibly underwhelming fights, and how the game shows his ascent from villainy and the birth of the Red Hood is so... well, bad. He vanishes after you whoop on him, and in the last few minutes he shoots Scarecrow once during that encounter and vanishes again. "I knew he would come," a cocky fucking Batman retorts after beating up Scarecrow. It's not the worst thing ever, but I'm really disappointed with the character overall especially when he didn't add much at all to the plot (yet is the titular character).
Joker being overly prevalent is really just a pet peeve of mine, but I mean COME ON. He was the big bad of Asylum, in City Hugo Strange is NO WAIT, it's actually Joker, and in Origins Black Mask seems to be causing, OH WAIT, it's actually Joker. He should be dead by Knight. Instead, Batman is infected with a joker virus, that is actually turning him into the Joker. Other's are also infected, but they all wind up dead. Through out the game (at predesignated spots around Gotham, and during story bits) Joker is around, taunting or guiding Batman. And it's... really really good. But the principal of the matter just kills it for me. This is one of the greatest examples of what makes the Joker great, he isn't real so he can just do anything he wants, and they take full advantage of this fact, having him taunt enemies unbeknownst to them, or cracking perfectly timed jokes during dialogue. It just, there's more to Batman's rogue gallery than the Joker! Throughout the course of the game the concept grew on me, and I was actually fine with it. Until the ending. The Joker virus is what saves Batman (I think) from the fear toxin. Scarecrow continually injects Batman, but each time you control Joker in Batman's mind as he fights off the toxin, eventually they wipe each other out, which leads to Batman stopping Scarecrow. Why, why, why does Joker have to be a critical plot element Rocksteady? He doesn't.
Overall though, I'd have to give the story of the game fairly high marks. Every character acts as they should, and the story is a pretty good one. One of my favorite aspects is a pretty small detail really, thug talk. As you fuck about Gotham you can hear random goons talking about things, and their conversations really help make up for the long drives/flights between objectives. "Man I feel like I've been here a week." "Yeah, when's the sun going to come up?" "Hey, at least this isn't Keystone City! At least we can see the Batman coming." "Hey, if you see the Batman, remember. Charge at him will screaming, never fails." "You know what would make this night perfect? If that freak from Metropolis showed up!" The small details is one of the things these guys handle really well overall, and you can tell they genuinely care about these characters and this world. It's just a shame they had to force the Joker in there, even though it's handled superbly.
So that's it right? Naw. This game is actually a bit worse than I've let on. Not game play wise mind you. Actually, I haven't mentioned that at all. This plays like all the Arkham games, with the free flow combat system, this time it's further optimized and mostly easy to use (though sometimes Batman would hit an enemy I swear I didn't aim towards). Gadgets can be utilized during fights, and to traverse the city, and some puzzles need solving from time to time. They really downplay the detective part of these games and just kind of have Batman do that for you, but I don't blame them for not implementing a full secondary investigation game in here. Really, the game play is the best of it's series. So what's the problem?
Fucking, Batmobile. Not even, Battank. The Battank is a really neat idea that the developer just failed to utilize. So Battank can shoot bullets, and missiles after a short cool down. You know what you fight the majority of the time? Other tanks. With no one manning them, so you can feel free to blow them all up. But they don't stop. Anytime one of these tank fights started up they felt like they just drug on and on and on and on and..... At first, I kind of liked them. Essentially you can see where the enemy is aiming, so you just maneuver around their shots as you let off your own. But they don't stop. And some of the tanks have homing missiles. And you just die and have to wait through the damn loading screen and then argh god dammit stop shooting me! Maybe it's partially due to playing on Hard (I don't know what the difference between difficulties is, if Normal has fewer waves PLAY ON NORMAL), but regardless this wore me down. No it tore me down. Stripped me bare and made me question what about video games I had ever enjoyed in the first place. So those once fairly high marks get knocked down to above average. Honestly, you can skip a lot of the tank battles, but there's still enough you're forced to partake in that it does bring down the entertaining story.
The worst part of the game though, hands down, the aspect of this game that rips the fun from the experience leaving you agitated and running all around Gotham like a fucking chump? The Riddler and his trophies. Riddler has always gotten the short end of the stick in this series. In the comics he's a highly intelligent man, which he claims to be in these games, but he comes across as a petulant and annoying child. And in this game, it really comes to a head. You can only finish this game once you've collected all two hundred and some of his trophies, and the ending you unlock (while stylistically looking awesome) makes little sense, and fills you with this sense of "my god, I'm hours older and have nothing to show for it". Do not try to one hundred percent finish this game, it is not worth it, it is not fun, there is nothing to be gained from the experience.
I haven't touched any of the DLC, but technically that might be the worst part of the game overall from what I've heard. Short single player campaigns, skin packs which could have been unlockable (what a concept), and challenge maps for Batman AND the fucking Battank. They seem fairly reasonably priced, but from what I've heard the story bits are too short to matter, and skins are skins. Challenge mode is something I've never gotten into in any of these games so I can safely say I'll never bother with those either.
Overall, Arkham Knight is a great game. It isn't the send off to the series that I wanted, but for what it is, it's fine. The story is good, with a few really baffling decisions, but the ride is enjoyable, even the Joker bits which I hate just as a concept work incredibly well. If you're a fan of action games, or of Batman, or of this series you've likely already picked up and finished this game (unless you're on PC only *chuckle snort* I'm sorry), but if you haven't, definitely give this one a go. A "Game of the Year" edition will no doubt surface at some point, and waiting for that might be the best option, getting the DLC for free couldn't hurt.
Also, technically a Spooktober game!
Immediately I've got to warn that thar' be spoilers here. I'm going to randomly weave them in, so read at your own risk (though honestly even though I enjoyed it, the plot is pretty much nonsense). Also, I need to confess that my favorite Batman villain is Scarecrow, and the fact that for the first time an Arkham game set up a villain and actually followed through with him being the big bad of the game instead of surprise-Joker AND that it was Scarecrow, I am a bit biased. Thankfully both the Arkham Knight and (last chance to avoid stupid spoilers) the Joker's appearances really do wear thin on me.
Essentially, Scarecrow is threatening to coat Gotham in fear gas, and he's gotten every other major villain to commit a big crime on the same day so as to spread Batman too thin, with the ultimate goal of destroying Batman, not killing him, destroying him. He also hired the mysterious (AKA not at all Jason Todd) Arkham Knight plus a gigantic army of tanks and military trained goons, and he swears he will finally kill Batman after all is said and done. At some point Scarecrow succeeds and covers the city in fear toxin, which looks neat, but is ultimately underwhelming, sadly. After clearing it up Batman winds up having to expose who he really is in order to save Robin and Jim Gordon. He quickly beats Scarecrow, and then goes about finishing off all the other crooks running amok. Afterwards he returns home, where a gang of press members are outside his house trying to get an interview. A few minutes after he enters his home, the mansion crumbles.
I truly enjoyed this plot overall, Scarecrow is fucking creepy throughout, and really his only weak point is that he's beaten by fucking Batman using his fear toxin on him, as usual. The other subplots are all pretty good, but the main problem in that regard is that almost half of the side quests in this game don't really star an actual super villain. And a few (Hush, Firefly, Man-Bat, Deathstroke, etc.) are either incredibly short, or the pay off is so underwhelming it's depressing.
The two biggest problems with the plot, for me, has to be the Arkham Knight, and the forced Joker segments. So, Arkham Knight. He's so fucking clearly Jason Todd it isn't even funny, before the game came out I assumed it was Jason Todd, lo and behold, Rocksteady really dropped the ball in this regard. The scenes showing Todd's fall from grace were actually really good, but his whole story makes little to no sense. He wants to kill Batman, he knows who he is, he never tells anyone who he is, and he never just GOES for it. He wants to hurt Batman, at various points he could murder a variety of Batman's comrades and just, doesn't. The final fight with him is one of the incredibly underwhelming fights, and how the game shows his ascent from villainy and the birth of the Red Hood is so... well, bad. He vanishes after you whoop on him, and in the last few minutes he shoots Scarecrow once during that encounter and vanishes again. "I knew he would come," a cocky fucking Batman retorts after beating up Scarecrow. It's not the worst thing ever, but I'm really disappointed with the character overall especially when he didn't add much at all to the plot (yet is the titular character).
Joker being overly prevalent is really just a pet peeve of mine, but I mean COME ON. He was the big bad of Asylum, in City Hugo Strange is NO WAIT, it's actually Joker, and in Origins Black Mask seems to be causing, OH WAIT, it's actually Joker. He should be dead by Knight. Instead, Batman is infected with a joker virus, that is actually turning him into the Joker. Other's are also infected, but they all wind up dead. Through out the game (at predesignated spots around Gotham, and during story bits) Joker is around, taunting or guiding Batman. And it's... really really good. But the principal of the matter just kills it for me. This is one of the greatest examples of what makes the Joker great, he isn't real so he can just do anything he wants, and they take full advantage of this fact, having him taunt enemies unbeknownst to them, or cracking perfectly timed jokes during dialogue. It just, there's more to Batman's rogue gallery than the Joker! Throughout the course of the game the concept grew on me, and I was actually fine with it. Until the ending. The Joker virus is what saves Batman (I think) from the fear toxin. Scarecrow continually injects Batman, but each time you control Joker in Batman's mind as he fights off the toxin, eventually they wipe each other out, which leads to Batman stopping Scarecrow. Why, why, why does Joker have to be a critical plot element Rocksteady? He doesn't.
Overall though, I'd have to give the story of the game fairly high marks. Every character acts as they should, and the story is a pretty good one. One of my favorite aspects is a pretty small detail really, thug talk. As you fuck about Gotham you can hear random goons talking about things, and their conversations really help make up for the long drives/flights between objectives. "Man I feel like I've been here a week." "Yeah, when's the sun going to come up?" "Hey, at least this isn't Keystone City! At least we can see the Batman coming." "Hey, if you see the Batman, remember. Charge at him will screaming, never fails." "You know what would make this night perfect? If that freak from Metropolis showed up!" The small details is one of the things these guys handle really well overall, and you can tell they genuinely care about these characters and this world. It's just a shame they had to force the Joker in there, even though it's handled superbly.
So that's it right? Naw. This game is actually a bit worse than I've let on. Not game play wise mind you. Actually, I haven't mentioned that at all. This plays like all the Arkham games, with the free flow combat system, this time it's further optimized and mostly easy to use (though sometimes Batman would hit an enemy I swear I didn't aim towards). Gadgets can be utilized during fights, and to traverse the city, and some puzzles need solving from time to time. They really downplay the detective part of these games and just kind of have Batman do that for you, but I don't blame them for not implementing a full secondary investigation game in here. Really, the game play is the best of it's series. So what's the problem?
Fucking, Batmobile. Not even, Battank. The Battank is a really neat idea that the developer just failed to utilize. So Battank can shoot bullets, and missiles after a short cool down. You know what you fight the majority of the time? Other tanks. With no one manning them, so you can feel free to blow them all up. But they don't stop. Anytime one of these tank fights started up they felt like they just drug on and on and on and on and..... At first, I kind of liked them. Essentially you can see where the enemy is aiming, so you just maneuver around their shots as you let off your own. But they don't stop. And some of the tanks have homing missiles. And you just die and have to wait through the damn loading screen and then argh god dammit stop shooting me! Maybe it's partially due to playing on Hard (I don't know what the difference between difficulties is, if Normal has fewer waves PLAY ON NORMAL), but regardless this wore me down. No it tore me down. Stripped me bare and made me question what about video games I had ever enjoyed in the first place. So those once fairly high marks get knocked down to above average. Honestly, you can skip a lot of the tank battles, but there's still enough you're forced to partake in that it does bring down the entertaining story.
The worst part of the game though, hands down, the aspect of this game that rips the fun from the experience leaving you agitated and running all around Gotham like a fucking chump? The Riddler and his trophies. Riddler has always gotten the short end of the stick in this series. In the comics he's a highly intelligent man, which he claims to be in these games, but he comes across as a petulant and annoying child. And in this game, it really comes to a head. You can only finish this game once you've collected all two hundred and some of his trophies, and the ending you unlock (while stylistically looking awesome) makes little sense, and fills you with this sense of "my god, I'm hours older and have nothing to show for it". Do not try to one hundred percent finish this game, it is not worth it, it is not fun, there is nothing to be gained from the experience.
I haven't touched any of the DLC, but technically that might be the worst part of the game overall from what I've heard. Short single player campaigns, skin packs which could have been unlockable (what a concept), and challenge maps for Batman AND the fucking Battank. They seem fairly reasonably priced, but from what I've heard the story bits are too short to matter, and skins are skins. Challenge mode is something I've never gotten into in any of these games so I can safely say I'll never bother with those either.
Overall, Arkham Knight is a great game. It isn't the send off to the series that I wanted, but for what it is, it's fine. The story is good, with a few really baffling decisions, but the ride is enjoyable, even the Joker bits which I hate just as a concept work incredibly well. If you're a fan of action games, or of Batman, or of this series you've likely already picked up and finished this game (unless you're on PC only *chuckle snort* I'm sorry), but if you haven't, definitely give this one a go. A "Game of the Year" edition will no doubt surface at some point, and waiting for that might be the best option, getting the DLC for free couldn't hurt.
Also, technically a Spooktober game!
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